1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to computer-implemented displays of items, including items displayed in hierarchies. More particularly, embodiments of the invention relate to systems and methods for searching and displaying search hits in hierarchies.
2. Background Information
Presently, there is a need to search items or objects arranged and displayed in hierarchies. The items or objects may correspond to data (e.g., tables, etc.), files (e.g., word processing documents, spreadsheet files, etc.) or folders (e.g., representing a collection or group of data or files) stored in memory or a database. These items or objects may be organized in hierarchies and represented on a computer screen or other suitable display by any combination of characters, icons and/or graphics. The need to search these items arises when, for example, a user is interested in locating or analyzing stored data, files or folders. This is relevant not only for personal computers, but also other types of computer-based environments such as workstations, servers, laptops, personal digital assistants (PDAs), mobile phones, handheld devices, and other computing devices.
A common problem is how to search objects or folders within a hierarchy and display the search hits or results. Another problem in the art is how to allow a user to browse search hits related to hierarchies. Current solutions do not sufficiently address these problems. For example, displaying a flat list of search hits (a common approach in popular PC operating systems such as Microsoft Windows) omits important information indicating a search hit's location in the hierarchy. In particular, this approach omits context information related to where a search hit is located in the hierarchy. Showing the path from the root of the hierarchy to the search hit gives partial information about this, but this is often not sufficient or not usable. Further, even if the search hits were displayed in the hierarchy, other problems remain, such as how to move from one hit to the next, and how to get an overview of all of the search hits. Presently, no solutions exist that address these problems.